January 26, 2018
In the last 24 hours, we have been mesmerized by the bombshell revelation that Trump tried to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller in June 2017, a mere month into his tenure. According to The New York Times, who broke the story, Trump only relented because White House Counsel, Don McGahn threatened to resign. While this story clearly provides more concrete evidence of Trump’s ongoing effort to thwart investigations into his complicity with Russian election meddling, it is not as consequential as the breathless coverage it has received would indicate.
The sad reality is that although evidence that Trump obstructed justice is piling up, it is abundantly clear that the Republican led Congress has progressed from passive enablers to active participants in the feverish campaign to undermine not only Robert Mueller, but the entire historically conservative federal law enforcement establishment.
Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin went on national television and alleged that there was a “secret society” within the FBI seeking to overthrow Trump. Johnson extrapolated this fabulist tale from a sarcastic text exchange between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, (Source : “A Wild Conspiracy Theory about an FBI ‘secret society’ has been swirling around the right-wing universe,” by Alan Smith, Businessinsider.com, 1/25/18).
Although the trumped up rage of the Fox News blowhards at the so-called “deep state“ seems patently ridiculous to those of us who rely on fact based journalism, we forget at our peril the fact that Fox News is the only news source that millions of Americans trust.
We need to bear that in mind as we engage in the coming policy fight over immigration. Yesterday, Trump released the “four pillars” of his proposed immigration policy. In exchange for a twelve year path to citizenship for the Dreamers, Trump wants to build a wall, end family reunification immigration for parents and siblings and end the diversity lottery, which is responsible for immigration from many African countries that Trump recently derided.
Let’s be crystal clear. This proposal represents a return to the immigration policy of the 1920’s which viewed all non white immigrants as undesirable. It is the panicked response of fear stricken racists to the perceived threat of our country’s demographic change. Notably absent from Trump’s proposal is any mention of the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living, working and paying taxes in this country. It is obvious that the administration position is that those people are fair game for deportation. In the words of acting ICE Director, Thomas Homan, “there’s no population off the table….If you’re in this country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re going to look to apprehend you.” (Source: “Have deportations increased under Donald Trump? Here’s what the data shows,” by Miriam Valverde, Politifact.com, 12/19/17).
Once arrested, the undocumented are added to the pool of coerced prison labor, where they can be thrown into solitary confinement for refusing to work (Source: “Private U.S. Detention Center Punishes Immigrants for Refusing to Work,” by Donald Kaufman, Truthdig.com, 1/15/18). This white supremacy as policy is a harbinger of things to come and none of us should be sanguine because of our citizenship status. The scapegoating, terrorizing and rounding up of a target population has a well known antecedent. We would do well to remember the words of Martin Niemöller, “First they came for the Socialists and I did not speak out, because I was not a Socialist.” We all know how that ends.
As always, so on target!